


Leaving Anfield

by acercrea



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Anfield, F/M, Liverpool F.C.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 18:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3260756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acercrea/pseuds/acercrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven is moving to the States and hasn't told his wife yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Anfield

Leaving Anfield

A/N: This is for the Anon who wanted a Steven Gerrard fic. I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Steven Gerrard. This is a work of fiction, and just for fun.

We are supposed to be partners; we are married, for crying out loud. But my husband goes and makes a huge decision like whether we should move to America or not without consulting me and suddenly I am thinking of the best way to separate him from his body parts.

When I first heard the rumors, all I could think was ‘here we go again.’ Because any transfer season that his contract is not locked in, every paper who thought they could get away with it posts a story about him transferring to this club in that league. None of them had ever been true, and after the first couple of years of Steve telling me that we would have the conversation together if he ever thought about moving, I stopped worrying about being unexpectedly uprooted by my husband’s demanding job. Of course he would talk to me before he committed to anything. Yes it was his job and our livelihood, but we were a team. We made decisions together.

But the rumors were quickly followed by talk that Steve was going to confirm the rumors that he was signing with an MLS club. He was going to release a statement by the end of the day. Within 5 minutes everyone with my phone number was calling me to ask what he was going to say. And I had no clue. I tried calling him, but his phone went straight to voicemail. I called his publicist, his agent, his manager; no one was answering my calls. So I did the only thing I could think of.

Luckily the kids are spending a couple of days with my parents, so I don’t have to worry about gathering them up, I just grab my keys and drive to Anfield. I glance at the clock and realize that the team will probably be just finished with training for the day when I get there.

“Are you ok, Mrs. G?” asks the parking attendant as I get out of my car slamming the door shut.

“Ask me that in twenty minutes, Theo,” I respond grimly.

In no time at all I have made my way to the locker room. “Is he in there?” I ask Patrick, the security guard at the door.

“He is, but you know I can’t let you in there, right Mrs. Gerard? All of the guys just got off the pitch, most of them are going to be in the showers,” he responds.

“I swear to god, Patrick, if you don’t let me in there, I am going to rip your testicles from your body and feed them to you like grapes,” I growl.

“Ok, I appreciate that you have some quality rage worked up, but did he really do something that bad?” Patrick asks, trying to calm me down.

“He agreed to move us to America without telling me. I need to talk to him,” I respond.

“Ok, I see your point, but it is my job to keep him from being murdered at Anfield. Can you promise me you won’t hurt him?” Patrick questions, his resolve visibly wavering.

“I promise that I will leave him fit for the match tomorrow, that is the best I can do,” I reply.

“I suppose that is going to have to be good enough. If anyone asks, you darted past me,” Patrick requests, stepping aside so I can open the door.

“Deal,” I agree, pushing the door open.

Trying my best to keep from seeing anything that would get me in trouble with the other wags, I search the locker room. I find him in the corner, a towel wrapped around his middle, pulling his clothes from the locker. At the sight of him, my anger surges and I am suddenly seeing red. “Oi, chicken shit. I need to talk to you. Meeting room, next door, now,” I order.

With the entire room now looking at us and trying to cover sensitive bits, Steve glances down at his towel and asks me, “Can I get dressed first?”

“If this could wait, I wouldn’t be in the locker room, now would I. Let’s go,” I command, walking over to him and grabbing his ear, pulling him behind me.

“Ow, babe, still attached to the ear you know?” he grumbles as he follows me, one hand trying to free his ear, the other holding his towel up.

“Get in there,” I direct, pushing him in front of me into the smaller room, and slamming the door shut behind us.

“You are really mad,” Steven starts after a few moments of silence.

“You think? I had to find out from Jonathan Overend on BBC fucking 5 that we are moving to America this summer. He is making it seem like it is a done deal, which I brushed off, but then I heard you are calling a press conference. No one on your PR team will answer my calls. I don’t know what to think, Steven. You promised me that if this were going to happen that I would hear about it from you. What happened to that promise? I thought we were a team, but then this happens and I don’t know what to think,” I repeat. I take a breath to steady myself and feel my anger losing its hold. “Are we moving?” I continue, my anger breaking suddenly into tears as I finally voice the one question whose answer I am afraid of.

Steve come over to me and wraps me in his arms. For a minute the only sound in the room is my sobbing as he comforts me and I borrow strength from his embrace. When he starts speaking it is apologetic. “It looks that way. I’m so sorry; I was supposed to have time to tell you. I was going to take you out tonight to a fancy dinner, get some wine into you and then once we got home I was going to ask you what you thought of all of this. But something happened and it broke early; I was supposed to have a week to announce anything. A week to figure this out with you. A week to decide whether I am going to leave the club I have been with since I was 9 years old. A week to decide which team was the best fit for us,” he trails off.

“Steve?” I ask, craning my neck to look up at him.

“It is way too fast. Anfield is me home, a week is not long enough to decide to leave me home. I don’t want to have to make this decision at all. But they are talking about not starting me. I have been a player for the first team for 16 years. I have been captain for 11 years. But if I want to get to play me last few seasons this is a decision I have to make. And I want to play. It gutted me to retire from the National Team this summer, and I know you know that. I was irritable for weeks after that, and I don’t know how you stood to be around me. I am absolutely not ready to do that permanently yet. I love this sport so much, and I don’t feel old, but they are telling me I am old. I know that me next serious injury will probably be my last. I know that. And I don’t want to leave, but I want to play while I still can,” his voice brakes, and suddenly he is the one crying and I am the one comforting him.

I have seen him cry a handful of times over the course of our relationship. There were happy tears on our wedding day, and the days our kids were born. He cried the night of that terrible car accident; the night of the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy; and night the Hillsborough Independent Panel findings were released stating that the fans were in no way responsible for the tragedy. It was always unexpected when he does cry. Steve is not a very expressive man; he internalizes things and deals with them himself. My heart almost breaks with the weight of his pain. We sit like this for a few minutes, me rubbing comforting circles on his back as he sobs on my shoulder, somehow having managed to fold his much larger frame into mine.

“Is this the only way?” I ask softly when his sobs start to subside.

“It looks that way. I have exhausted every option, I promise you. I had really hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he confesses.

“At least tell me we have offers from a club somewhere warm. Galaxy, or um… I guess don’t really know any other American clubs. There is the one with the trees, right?” I ask.

The chuckle I receive in response is like the sun after rain. Warm and welcome, and it makes me realize that if I have to carry this burden for him I can do it easily. “The Timbers, yeah, but they are up in Oregon. Not exactly warm, from what I understand, but they haven’t put in an offer anyway, so it is moot. One of the clubs we do have an offer in from is the Galaxy, though. If that is where you want to go, that is where we will go. Just say the word. We can pull a Posh and Becks,” he replies, tucking some hair behind my ear affectionately.

“We have some time to decide which club, right?” I ask looking deeply into his brown eyes.

“Not a lot of time, but some, yeah,” he acknowledges.

“Ok, here is the game plan as I see it, then. First, you go make a short announcement to the press. I will stand in the wings, well off camera, but you will know I am there. Then we go home and I make dinner or we call in take away, open a bottle of wine and discuss which clubs want you and we decide where we are going to go. How does that sound?” I ask.

I am caught off guard for a second when instead of answering me he crushes his mouth to mine. I soon sink into the kiss and smile against his lips as his hands tangle in my hair, and I wrap my arms around him, tracing the muscles of his back. I draw strength from the kiss, and try to give as much warmth and heart back as possible.

We suddenly seem to remember at the same moment that he is only in a towel and he freezes in the instant my hands pause on his bare back. We stare at each other for a moment before he asks, “Still in just a towel, yeah?”

“Yeah. You should probably get dressed before the press conference. Let’s go,” I spoke with a laugh, standing up and holding my hand out to him. He just cocks an eyebrow at me questioningly, so I continue, “I will stay outside of the locker room this time, I promise.”

It is his turn to laugh as we walk hand in hand out of the conference room. “I can’t believe you did that. The other wags are going to be so mad at you,” he teases.

“I didn’t see anything, I promise. I successfully averted my eyes. Besides which I can’t believe you actually said ‘We can pull a Posh and Becks.’ I have half a mind to call Victoria while I am waiting for you to put on pants,” I reply.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he responds.

“Just hurry up, I’ll wait here,” I answer, stopping at the door.

“Back in a flash,” he promises, kissing me on the forehead before disappearing behind the door.

I know leaving Anfield is going to be hard for him, but I also know that he is strong enough to do this. I am going to stand by him, and I don’t think it will be permanent. He was right about Anfield being his home, and that is the best part of all of this. You can always go back home when you need to.

A/N: Ok, this one was so hard for me to write, because I love Gerrard so much, he is the epitome of English football to me. I know that he would never do something like this, but I got the idea in my head and I had to write it. I hope the Anon who requested this likes it. Let me know what you think. I generally post all of my fics on my Tumblr first, the link is [here](http://www.acercrea.tumblr.com/) if you want to check that out. You can request a fic if you want either here or there.

 


End file.
